Addressing the interrelation between immunosenescence and post-myocardial infarction healing processes

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Gustavo C. Ramos, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Cardiology, Angiology ; Immunology
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 411619907

The prevalence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) increases dramatically with age. Nevertheless, most of the basic research in Cardiology has been conducted on young healthy animals which may not necessarily reflect the situation observed in the clinic. Emerging evidences show that the both the heart, and the immune system undergo dramatic changes with aging, and there is an unmet need to understand how those alterations ultimately affect the outcomes of cardiovascular diseases in elderly subjects. Over the past few years, we have observed that T-cells foster the post-myocardial infarction (MI) repair process in young mice, but fuel detrimental myocardial inflammation in aged animals. Next, plan to combine these variables (aging, MI, and T-cells) into a unified picture to attain greater translational relevance. Thus, we herein propose to combine refined experimental approaches with biomaterial available from well-characterised MI-patients to address the interrelation between immunosenescence and the post-myocardial infarction healing process.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants